Wharton MBA alumnus Yuri Milner, WG’92, and his wife Julia have committed $10 million to create the Friends of Israel MBA Fund at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“As a former international student myself, I know the transformative impact that an education at Wharton can have,” says Milner.
The gift will immediately support Israeli students with full tuition over the course of the two-year Wharton MBA program for a cohort of over sixty students over the next decade. The Fellowship is dedicated to Israeli students, including those who have completed Israeli military service, attended an Israeli undergraduate institution, or worked at an Israeli company. The gift gives Wharton the ability to support extraordinary international students.
“Yuri’s philanthropy has been as visionary as his distinguished business career,” said President Gutmann. “With this exceptional gift creating the Friends of Israel MBA Fund, Yuri has created another forward-looking philanthropic initiative.”
An Israeli science and technology investor and philanthropist, Milner founded the investment firm DST Global. With his wife Julia, Yuri also started the philanthropic initiative the Breakthrough Foundation and the two co-launched the Breakthrough Prizes with Mark Zuckerberg and others, the world’s largest scientific awards. Milner joined Stephen Hawking to launch two initiatives: the $100 million Breakthrough Listen initiative to reinvigorate the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the universe, and the $100 million Breakthrough Starshot, a research and engineering program seeking to develop a technology for interstellar travel.
This commitment marks a historic investment in student aid, a priority under the University’s The Power of Penn Campaign to grow graduate student aid to minimize the burden of debt.
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